Available evidence on the occurrence of Vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), fishing activity in relation to VMEs, and spatial management options to minimise the risk from fishing activities to VMEs
Within the Celtic Seas ecoregion, the ICES VME database contains 3,091 records for VME habitats and 9,278 records for VME indicators (as of March 2022). This information has been collected through various gear types and survey methods. The fishery closure scenarios for VME protection are based on the method described in the ACOM technical guidelines based on WKVMEBM (ICES 2022).
Bottom fishing (static and mobile) is the single most important human-induced pressure on the seafloor in this area. Other important pressures are [XX], [YY] and [ZZ], but their occurrence and intensity [align with EO terminology?] is low compared to that of bottom fisheries (link to: ICES ecosystem overviews).
For the purpose of this assessment, evidence of VME occurrence is aggregated at the scale of individual C-square cells where VME habitats or indicator taxa are assumed to be homogeneously distributed. Similarly, fishing effort information is aggregated at the scale of C-square cells to form the fishery footprint (FF) for mobile and static gear. The fishable domain is the total area in the 400-800m depth zone opened to bottom-contacting fishing activities in the ecoregion. It is defined as those C- square cells in which each individual cell with active fisheries has at least one neighbouring cell also with active fisheries between 2009-2011, excluding existing VME closures and other closures e.g. haddock box.
[p] new VME habitat and indicator records were submitted, and quality checked in the 2021 VME data call [ICES WGDEC 2021]. This resulted in [X] new VME Habitat and [Y] new VME indicator records distributed over [X] Habitat c-squares and [Y] Index c-squares ([X] index High, [Y] index Medium and [Z] index Low).
[p] absence records were added to the VME database
The combined, static, or mobile fishing footprint within the 400-800m depth boundary did not change based on the VMS data call in 2021
no new VME physical elements were added to the ecoregion
seafloor depths were updated with EmodNet Bathymetry (2020). This update did not result in any changes to the 400-800m deep sea access depth boundary.
Existing VME closures, fishing footprint and VME c-square information